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Outgoing FBI Director Christopher Wray said Sunday he’s leaving his post when President-elect Donald Trump assumes office to avoid throwing the bureau “deeper in the fray” as he defended the agency’s 2022 raid of the 45th president’s Florida estate.
The head of the FBI addressed his impending resignation, the controversial search for classified documents at Mar-a-Lago and how China is the “defining threat of our generation” in a wide-ranging interview on CBS’s “60 Minutes” Sunday night.
Wray, 58, said deciding to step down before completing his 10-year term was “one of the hardest decisions” he’s ever faced. He announced his departure from the post last month.
“I care deeply, deeply — about the FBI, about our mission — and in particular about our people. But you know the president-elect had made clear that he intended to make a change, and the law is that that is something he is able to do for any reason or no reason at all,” Wray told Scott Pelley.
“My conclusion was that the thing that was best for the bureau was to try to do this in an orderly way, to not thrust the FBI deeper into the fray.”
While Trump appointed Wray to lead the FBI during his first term in office, the Republican was enraged when the federal agents raided Mar-a-Lago in 2022 in search of classified documents the former and now-incoming president was accused of mishandling.
Wray, who served as director for more than seven years, also caught heat as the FBI probed alleged attempts to subvert the results of the 2020 election.
Trump faced federal charges brought by a special prosecutor before both cases were dropped after he won the election in November.
Wray stood up for his agents in both cases, insisting it’s the bureau’s job is to “follow the facts wherever they lead, no matter who likes it.”
He argued the search of Trump’s massive property was a last option.
“And when we learn that information, classified material, is not being properly stored, we have a duty to act. And I can tell you that in investigations like this one, a search warrant is not and here was not anybody’s first choice,” he said on CBS.
Wray said he hasn’t had any discussion with the Biden administration about any probe into Trump, and doesn’t believe anyone else in the FBI has been in touch with the current White House.
Wray also defended the FBI in its investigation into President Biden’s son, Hunter, who was convicted of gun and tax charges before his father pardoned him last month. Biden has labeled the prosecution the result of “raw politics.”
“This is a hard job,” he told Pelley. “You’re inevitably going to make different people angry, often very powerful people.”
Wray also warned the US faces a growing threat from the Chinese government, including its cyber program that has stolen personal and corporate data from Americans, and its targeting of crucial US infrastructure.
“Things like water treatment plants. We’re talking about transportation systems,” he said. “We’re talking about targeting of our energy sector, the electric grid, natural gas pipelines. And recently we’ve seen targeting of our telecommunications systems.”
The challenges from China and other adversaries could fall to former attorney for the US Justice Department’s national security division, Kash Patel, who Trump has nominated to lead the FBI, but will need US Senate confirmation.
